


Haven

by kirschtrash



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotions, Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Keith angst, Keith's Story, Minor Keith/Lance (Voltron), Minor Keith/Shiro (Voltron), POV Third Person, this is more of a writing exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 16:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7582138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirschtrash/pseuds/kirschtrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haven; a place of safety or refuge. It is a place where one can feel safe, be protected from the dangers of the outside world. It is an abode where one can feel comfortable, warm, and whole.</p>
<p>Everyone had such a sanctuary - well, everyone except Keith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haven

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little something I wrote bc rewatching Voltron made me realise how much I loved Keith ;u; (tho I'm sorry beforehand bc this is super angsty)
> 
> Here's my [Tumblr](http://kirschtrash.tumblr.com) and [Twitter!](https://mobile.twitter.com/kirschtrash)

Haven; a place of safety or refuge. It is a place where one can feel safe, be protected from the dangers of the outside world. It is an abode where one can feel comfortable, warm, and whole.

Everyone had such a sanctuary - well, everyone except Keith.

_That’s impossible_ , they all would say. _Everyone had a place they belonged to_ , they would explain. _Everyone had a place where they could be themselves, like a home_.

Well, what he’d call his ‘ _home_ ’ didn't feel like one. All it felt like was a prison, a hole where he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t live. All it had ever been was a hollow shell, the remnants of what used to be a happy family. All that remained was a lonely woman he called his mother, who’d drink to forget the pain of losing a love ages ago. All that resonated through its bare walls were the slurred shouts of _‘where did he go’_ , _’why did he leave me’_ , _’I want him back, let me have him again’_. All that he ever had the grace of hearing from her was, _‘You’re a fault. You’re a fault. You don't belong.’_

Everyone had said that she didn’t mean those words. Everyone told him that it was the alcohol speaking, not her. _No mother could say that_ , they would say.

But they didn’t know the truth, not the truth that Keith knew. From the way she’d spit those words out in a blurry fury, spittle flying out of her mouth, the words became heavier. From the way her eyes would flash with anger, with sadness, with regret, her words sounded so much like a sour, stinging fact. And when she’d cry herself to sleep every night, sobs she’d try hard to muffle _booming_ through their entire house, the fiery words of anger turned into a bitter statement of truth: he was a fault, and he didn’t belong.

Realizing it had been easy. Accepting it had been hard, disturbing even. The feat made it hard for Keith to look at his mother the same way again. It made it hard for him to talk to her, without wanting to scream. It made it hard for him to exist with her - and that was when he decided to run away.

That was also when he landed at the Garrison. He had to live somewhere, he couldn’t just end up out on the streets. There, he was taught how to pilot shuttles and spaceships, he was taught how to manage such complicated structures, and was taught how to survive out in space. The experience had been invigorating; to think that he had the potential to step out of the world that had given him so little, and enter a spacious universe where he could find so much more - it awakened a strange sort of hunger in him, to explore more, to find his own little haven amongst the stars. Every night, when he’d stare at the night sky from the rooftop before sleeping in his barracks, he’d tell himself: _maybe this time, you could belong somewhere_.

But the sweet thought would turn sour in his mouth, when he’d look around himself; everywhere he looked, he saw strangers. People who glanced at his way, and gave him peculiar looks. Cadets who whispered venomously into each other's ears, smirking and grinning behind his back. _Look at that strange guy_ , they’d say. _Look at him, all alone and homeless. Look at him - that misfit._  
And Keith had learned to brush it off. He had taught himself to do so way before he even joined the Garrison. But the words continued to sting. They stung, they seared, and they hurt when they reminded him so much of the same words his mother used to tell him.

That was when he couldn't take it. That was when he let himself loose.

He still remembered how the anger had felt, searing red hot through his entire being. He still remembered the heat stinging at the back of his throat, still remembered it coursing through him, making his blood boil. He still remembered how everything had turned into a blind, blind rage, and punches and kicks flew right out of him, till he couldn't even control himself. And before he knew it, he was kicked out of that tiny sanctuary of his. Alone again.

Keith couldn’t feel safe in his own house, and he couldn’t adjust at the Garrison. He just didn’t belong.

He ran. He ran far away, far away from everyone. He ran till his feet bled, ran till his bones cracked, and stopped only when he was a hundred miles away from any kind of civilization, lost in what seemed to be a desolate, abandoned canyon.  
No, he wasn’t lost - not really. It felt as if some force were pulling him there. When he had stepped out of the Garrison, that force tugged at his heart constantly, like an itch he couldn’t scratch, almost like a sign. And when his mind was a complete mess of scrambled thoughts and emotions, that single force made enough sense; it had been coherent enough to follow, to hold onto. He had nothing else.

_I don’t_ need _anything else,_ he told himself. _I don’t need a sanctuary, a home, a haven. I don’t need any of that. I can live by myself - I can survive that way._ Those words he told himself over and over, making it concrete: he didn’t have to belong to anybody. He was better off alone.

He had realized it ages ago. And yet, accepting it felt like lifting up mountains and carrying them on his shoulders. The weight made his bones ache, but it helped evade the emptiness in his chest. It made it easy for him to forget what he could never have.

Soon, he had learned to live by himself. He had learned to live alone, out amongst the rough canyons, ditches, and mountains, away from the judging world. It was better that way, he realized. That way, he didn’t have to put up with people who couldn’t deal with him. That way, he didn’t have to stay at some place where he didn't belong.

But all that changed when he saw a streak of red cutting through the deep, dark sky, running bright like a drop of blood. Keith thought that it was a meteor, but no - it was a spaceship, a Galra spaceship, no less. That was when he had followed that falling ship, as it crashed into earth. That was when he helped bust out the respectable Shiro of the Kerberos mission, who had been restrained by troops - and brought along three other trainees from the Garrison, all of whom had accompanied him in a race for his life.

Keith didn’t want to go farther than that. He didn’t want to accompany these people he had just met, too sure that they would also end up abandoning him in the end. But this time, he had no choice - because there was some strange force telling him to stay with them. It told him not to leave them, not yet. Not too soon.  
It almost felt like the kind of tug he had felt back at the canyon’s edge, only this was much stronger than that, much more sudden, and more forceful. It was different.

It felt silly. How could Keith trust a mismatched team of four he just met?

He only called it a ‘ _gut feeling_ ’ in the beginning, when they had only just found the Blue Lion. He continued calling it that when they fought a Galra ship, out to get the lot of them; and he kept calling it nothing more than that, when they barely escaped through a wormhole, only to land in a foreign planet called Ares.  
When they met Allura, the princess of Altea, Keith finally understood what that ‘ _gut feeling_ ’ was. It was not a feeling, not so much as it was a mental bond; it was a bond that the five shared consequently, because they were the five legendary Paladins: the chosen people who could pilot the robotic Lions, that unite to form Voltron. Coran went so far as to state that such a bond could become so strong, that it could run deep till one another’s very emotions.

Keith couldn’t help but feel a surge of hope rush through him at that thought. _Could this mean that I don’t have to run again?_ he had thought. _Could I stay, for once?_

The warm feeling of hope had turned cold when it came to finding his own Lion - the Red Lion.

He had been impatient, anxious, nervous. The fact that it was trapped in a Galra ship, surrounded densely by their fleet, didn’t help his restlessness at all. But he jumped inside that ship determined; if there was a shot at doing something right for once in his life, he wanted to grasp the chance with both arms outstretched.

Finding the Lion had been a hard feat on its own. Trusting that gut instinct alone was fruitless at first, and worked only when he had lost himself countless of times before that. But once he found it, he couldn’t own it, couldn’t connect with it. Keith couldn’t pilot the Red Lion, because he hadn’t earned its trust, not as easily as the rest had. Keith still remembered the way fear had frozen him in place back then, when he just stared helplessly at the robotic lion, caged in the confines of a shield. He still remembered how hopeless he had felt, when Galra troops cornered him from behind, while his only hope of survival stood before him, unresponsive, and unmovable - locked away from its chosen Paladin. Can’t you feel my desperation? he had wanted to scream. We’re meant to be bonded, right? Can’t you feel my need to connect with something?

Soon, he had earned its trust, but not without putting his very life on the line. After that, he had become comfortable with piloting his Lion. Thankfully, that rock-solid fear that made his bones turn to ice had subsided. But the lingering, icy feeling persisted. That subtle doubt in the back of his mind remained - unwilling to leave, and unnecessarily true.

It said only one thing: _if connecting with my own Lion had been so hard, will I ever be able to connect with my fellow Paladins? Will I ever belong with them?_

The thought felt impossible at first, when he couldn’t agree with the lot of them, without having some contradiction to argue about. It definitely felt like a fruitless mission when he could feel the indifferent stares they’d give whenever he’d speak, whenever he’d argue, whenever he’d excuse himself to train alone. Maybe what my mother said was true, he was resigned to believe. Maybe it’s a plan that is bound to fail.

But then, Keith learned to accept the arguments Allura would give about their missions. He laughed at the jokes Hunk shared with them at the dinner table, and understood all the mechanical details he’d give about the Lions. He sat by Pidge, and tried to follow their rants about the castle’s advanced technology. He conversed with Lance civilly, without having to fight with him. He sparred with Shiro in the training room, and learned more than a few tricks from him.  
He began understanding Allura’s pain, of losing her entire family, as well as her race years ago. He also started respecting her, when she’d shoot a hopeful smile at everyone nonetheless. He started respecting Pidge, too, for being able to support the entire team despite having a family lost out in space, and most likely in the hands of Zarkon; he even noticed how every smile they’d shoot would not only be warm, but strong, too. He started helping Hunk out in the kitchens, and he couldn’t help but smile whenever he’d cook up a dish for everyone with so much vigour, care, and love. He began talking more with Lance, learning more about his family back at Earth; he even held his hand when his homesickness was unbearable, when all Lance wanted to do was return to the one place he’d always call his home. He hung out with Shiro, too, learning more and more about how his life at the Galra prison had been like. He had even held him when the memories flooding in would be too much, too sudden for him, making him shiver with fright.

Their stares were no longer indifferent; they were now warm. There was no hesitation in them; there was a familiarity within them now, as they approached him more easily than before. They talked more, and smiled more. They laughed together, cried together, won together; they shared their fears, their tears, their deepest of thoughts, as well as their hopes. They shared countless of victories. And even when they’d lose, they had each other to find the will to fight again.

The mystical force he had felt back at earth was now undeniable. But the fear was there, too. It was always there; ever since he stepped a foot outside his mother’s house, ran out of the Garrison, lost himself in the canyons, and found himself in space aboard the Red Lion, he always had an undying fear settled into his very bones. A fear of not belonging anywhere.

But then, he’d see four brave Paladins surround him. They’d be covered in soot and sweat, all battered, bruised, and covered in blood. And even through the pain, they’d shoot Keith a smile, a smile to mark their victory. A victory they’d earn together.

Then, he’d feel the fear dissipate.

_Maybe this time, it’s possible. Maybe this time, I could finally belong._

_This could be my sanctuary. This could be my haven._

**Author's Note:**

> SO how was this?? I was experimenting with my writing style with this, so did it work or what? Do comment and let me know! (I'm open for criticism, too;;)
> 
> And I'd like to highlight something about all this discourse going on in the fandom: your opinions are valid, but it gives u no right to hate on others! Spread love in this new, marvellous fandom - not hate!
> 
> Until next time, bye bye! <3


End file.
